Saints fired Spagnuolo and Flajole

New Orleans Saints Relieve DC Steve Spagnuolo and Secondary Coach Ken Flajole of Their Duties
By NewOrleansSaints.com


The New Orleans Saints announced Thursday that Defensive Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo and Secondary Coach Ken Flajole have been relieved of their duties with the team.


“I personally want to thank Steve and Ken for their contributions during what was an unprecedented 2012 season,” said Saints Head Coach Sean Payton. “Philosophically we are changing our defense to a 3-4 alignment and right now is the best time to accomplish this transition.”

I personally want to thank Steve and Ken for their contributions during what was an unprecedented 2012 season, said Saints Head Coach Sean Payton.... by unprecedented does he mean worst defense ever in the Saints history?

This could be good for the Rams as I have been mocking Sheldon Richardson to us at #16 but have had a hard time seeing him get past NO at 15.

Now with the Saints going to a 3 - 4 S. Richardson would not be a fit and it is far more likely that they'll opt for someone like Dion Jordan or Bark Mingo.

Heh....I guess in a round about way we may need to give a shout out to Spags should this go down this way.


WHAT SAYE YE?

Interesting decision simply because Spagnolo's defense generally takes a full year to implement. It doesn't help that the Saints have generally ignored/drafted poorly on the defensive side of the ball for years and just make up for it with a great offense. Kind of similar to the Patriots in that sense.

But honestly, a lot of the Saints defensive players aren't all that great. Their D line has no good pass rushers, they lost Porter at CB, and their linebackers are mediocre. They basically relied on the offense to stay on the field the whole game. The offense faltered, and suddenly the D was more exposed. Just look at the stats

2011 Saints offense: 2012 Saints offense:
First downs: 416 352
Rushing yds: 2127 1557
Passing yds: 5347 4997
TDs: 66 58
TOP: 31:58 28:59

(Sorry, best way I could figure to do it, hope it is readable)

Even though the Saints still boasted a powerful offense, that's a signiciant decline. Not saying the offense is entirely to blame for the defense, Spags clearly needed to do better work, but I think firing him distracts from the root cause of the problems, which was poor drafting and a declining offense.